Friday, 5 September 2014

It never rains but what it pours in Boston, does it?

First we lose our MP for reasons that have divided opinion
among local people (more on that later) and now – at the moment when it seems that his move might
give UKIP a remote chance to wrest the seat from the Tories, up springs
Neil Hamilton like Zebedee from the
Magic Roundabout to announce his intention to seek the nomination.

Our erstwhile MP Sir Richard Body never quite recovered from
a jibe delivered by the normally mild-mannered former Prime Minister John Major,
of whom he once said: “Whenever I see him approaching, I hear the flapping of white
coats."

Quite what Major would have heard as Neil Hamilton
approached would most likely have produced even more entertaining analogies.

It concerns us that the party might be lured by the purely
illusory notion that Neil Hamilton is a well-known personality
– or worse still, someone “famous” who will “put Boston on the map.”

Neil Hamilton is famous for being infamous.

According to the sanitised account of this plan to stand for
Boston on the Boston Standard’s
website, “Hamilton served as MP for Tatton – now Chancellor George Osborne’s
seat – between 1983 and 1997, when he lost to campaigner Martin Bell. He had
been Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry between 1992 and 1994.”

The background was covered in slightly more detail when the
paper hit the shops, but was still not one of the great moments in local
journalism.

As many readers will remember, there was more to it than
merely “losing to Martin Bell” – the former BBC war correspondent defeated
Hamilton on an “anti-sleaze” ticket after the “cash for questions”
affair.

And if that doesn’t mean a lot, then hopefully this timeline
from BBC news will tell the tale far more succinctly than we ever could.

click to enlarge photo

A sorry footnote to the whole affair was that Hamilton was
eventually bankrupted after a petition was brought by Mohamed Al Fayed, who was
owed £1.5m in court costs after Hamilton's unsuccessful libel action against
him over the cash for questions affair – and whose failed subsequent appeal
left him with estimated debts of about £3 million.

***

When we made reference to bobbing up like Zebedee, there was
a reason, as theHamiltons – and don’t forget, wherever Neil goes, he is
joined at the hip to his wife Christine, a former face of British Sausage Week
in 2005 – bob up here, there and everywhere, and to
their credit, whilst they may be amiable clowns, they are certainly
not quitters.

Over the years, the couple have appeared in countless TV
programmes, written books, performed in pantomime and at the Edinburgh fringe.
They even opened the adult roadshow Erotica
Manchester, billed as “the world’s largest erotic festival” and recorded an
unofficial England World Cup song, “England are Jolly Dee” in 2006.

With a CV like that, if UKIP didn't exist, the next choice would
have to have been the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Publicity is definitely their opiate of choice.

But do you hear the sound of white coats flapping?

We surely do.

***

Neil Hamilton has gone from being a former Tory minister to
the Vice Chairman of UKIP, although he was quietly axed from his role as UKIP
campaigns director amid reported insider claims that the demotion stemmed from
fears over his political disgrace.

In an interview with BBC
Radio Lincolnshire, Mr Hamilton said of his decision to apply to stand in
Boston: “I came, I saw, I liked what I saw and that is what has made my mind
up."

He said he decided to stand in the constituency because it
was in the region with the highest number of votes for UKIP in the country at
the European elections in May.

"The whole of my political life has been fought to
achieve [getting out of Europe] and so I obviously want to be in at the
kill," he said.

"If Boston and Skegness can be the means of
achieving that then that's the seat for me."

Humbly, he added: “I would be the most effective representative
for Boston and Skegness in Westminster, which is really what matters.”

He said he wants to highlight the effect of immigration
on the area.

“I want to put Boston and Skegness on the front pages and
because I'm a nationally known figure I think I can really put the national
searchlight on the terrible problems which have been foisted on the constituency."

In another BBC interview, he took things further by saying
that UKIP
was a party for “decent” supporters of the BNP who worried about being
"swamped" by immigrants,

On BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's
Politics he said “a lot of decent people” who had previously voted for the
BNP were now turning to UKIP instead.

“They feel their communities are being swamped by immigrants
from outside, whether they are from Eastern Europe or from other parts of the
world.

“Now those people, the decent supporters of the BNP, from
the last election, who weren't true BNP supporters at all, I am sure that quite
a few of them are voting for a respectable alternative, which is UKIP," he
added.

Interesting how times are changing.

Not so long ago, such comments would have drawn cries of “racist”
from several of our Boston borough councillors – and may well do again, if they
think that there is political advantage in it.

***

Neil Hamilton also claims a vague political kinship with Sir
Richard Body – who also flirted with UKIP – telling the Boston Standard: “Dick Body was
a great friend of mine. We were very close when I was an MP – I want to follow in the tradition that he
set.”

A review of Body’s political career in Total Politics says: “Even Body's subsequent defection to the UK
Independence party, triumphantly announced on the homepage of the party's
website, was less straightforward than at first it seemed.

“Nine days later, the by then former MP told Boston Target readers that he would be
voting Conservative at the 2005 election
and advised them to do the same.

“There was dark talk among some Boston UKIP members of
referring the party's new star signing to its disciplinary committee for
‘bringing the party into disrepute.'

“The party evidently forgave him, however, and its website
now lists him as a "UKIP grandee" (although his UKIP membership lapsed in 2008
and he later joined the English Democrats.)”

***

Just to lighten up for a moment.

If he were to be elected, we wondered
whether Neil Hamilton’s name holds any clues to what sort of MP he might be.

So we checked out some anagrams of his name – with some
interesting results.

A move to Boston-by-the-sea could well be one Into
Main Hell if things didn’t go well.

Bearing in mind the cash for questions affair, the thought
of

Ah, Ten
Million might have some allure and, of course, whoever gets the job, we
will always want an MP who doesn’t turn out to be a Thin Lame Lion.

***

Following the circular route that this blog often takes, we
now come back to the present day and the departure of our sitting MP Mark
Simmonds.

After all the criticism, a writer to a local “newspaper” had
some sympathy for the “plight” which led to his decision to quit.

“He’s standing down because he wants his family with him but
he can’t rent a four-bedroom flat in central London for £28,000 a year. People
don’t believe him, but have they bothered to check?

“I did an online search and found nothing in Westminster under
£30,000 a year, so I don’t struggle to take him at his word.

“He hates staying in a hotel and doesn’t want to commute
from the suburbs. Those are personal choices and we’re all entitled to make
them. If our jobs won’t accommodate them, we quit.

“If those complaining about his decision had a friend saying
the same things, they’d reward them with ‘I don’t blame you mate’. But sadly, because
Mr Simmonds is a politician, people seem to think they have the right to
control not only his Parliamentary duties but his personal decisions too.”

We have to say that we think this to be a bit over-simplistic
given the huge sums of money and property values involved.

Mr Simmonds ought to have been able to rearrange the Monopoly board
and acquire a top quality London home where, no doubt, his family would have
been much happier, and bought or rented somewhere decent in Boston for his
weekend visits.

***

But as is always the case with politicians, not everyone
accepts what they say at face value.

A Boston Eye
reader e-mails to say: “I don't think anyone with any sense is buying his
excuse for resigning. The man had a clear majority in the area with no near
contenders – especially since UKIP’s main man has decided to run in South
Thanet and not Boston, which at one stage could have been a possibility.

“Who in their right mind would be pleased to have him
representing an area he knows absolutely nothing about?

“And the Tory candidate?

“No suggestions so far. However, with the recent shock
defection of Douglas Carswell to UKIP and possibly others from the
Conservatives and Labour, the last thing they will be thinking about is Boston
and Skegness.

“Back to Mark Simmonds. He resigned only a few weeks after
the appointment of Philip Hammond as Foreign Secretary. Apparently Baroness
Warsi mentioned her "great unease" at Philip Hammond's appointment.

“Did Mark Simmonds also have a great unease?

“Just having a quick look at his tweets at the end of May,
he was taking a Mozambique delegation around this area for possible trade
partnerships. Don't recall this being reported in the local press, but I could
have missed the article. His involvement in Africa was also quite strong but of
course he could still be doing his job whilst harbouring decisions to leave.

“Also, it was only last year he (and in fairness) others,
missed a crucial vote regarding Syria, on which the government were narrowly
defeated.
"Was he put on the political naughty step due to this? However, could
it also be that his boss, William Hague, was replaced due to the amount of
people going from the UK to fight in Syria and who are now possibly returning
to the UK to cause further problems here?

“It makes your head spin - or mine at least.

“The bottom line is, I think the guy was out of his depth.
At the end of the day he was a surveyor who ended up embroiled in issues far
beyond his scope who initially was probably quite chuffed to be chosen for the
role but finds out how difficult and awful a place the world is outside of
dealing with his constituents in Boston and Skegness.”

***

The satirical magazine Private
Eye had its own take on the Warsi/Simmonds departures which appeared in its
New
Coalition Academy feature – a spoof on the government run as a private
school with the politicians as teachers.

***

Still looking ahead to May 2015, and we have received a few
more nuggets from an insider about how the selection process operates – and
what happened last time, when Mark Simmonds was chosen.

We are told that the usual procedure is for Conservative
Central Office Candidates’ Department to “clear” Tory hopefuls, who would have
the information on all constituencies and apply to the ones they “prefer.”

Locally, the Constituency Secretary prepares a list of all
CVs with any information available on each.

There is then a meeting of the selection committee (drawn up
from officers and senior members) followed by a sift of candidates to bring the
numbers to a sensible level – followed by selections held at Skegness and Boston.

The outgoing MP will only vote on the final of three
candidates

Most would then proceed to the bar in the Con Club.

Our man in the know says he doesn’t think that Mark Simmonds
will be there, though, as he has been persona
non grata at the constituency office for some time.

Interestingly, back in the day of the final selection
between Mark Simmonds and two others, we are told that Sir Richard Body
approached the ballot box holding a voting slip indicating his support for Mark
Simmonds and whispered “Am I doing the right thing?”

When it was time to lodge the nomination papers for the
election, we are told that when Simmonds was asked for his deposit he gave “a
surprised look” and a cheque – which is
only cashed if the candidate loses – had
to be issued in his name.

Apparently, Sir Richard had in the past paid his deposit in gold
sovereigns!

***

We mentioned house prices earlier – and whilst everyone else
appears to be sitting on a fortune if they own their own home, we don’t seem to
be so lucky here in Boston.

The Sunday Times
has come up with a clever little calculator that shows by how much local house
prices have risen since 1995.

The answer is a wallet busting 130%, which sounds very
exciting until you see that it means the average price for the area is now £140,351
– up from £61,044 twenty years ago … an increase of £79,306.

But that pales into insignificance when compared with the
news earlier this year that the average UK house price has now hit £250,000.

The strange thing is that when you browse the windows of
local estate agents, house prices seem much the same as they were a year or 18
months ago – and that’s despite claims that prices have risen by more than 15%
in that time.

But bet your boots that if the current housing bubble bursts,
local prices will fall in line with everywhere else – despite apparently never
having risen.

Certainly, there’s not much chance of people in Boston “downsizing”
to somewhere smaller and pocketing some handy cash – there’s nowhere lower to
go!

It called the Boston Blight.

***

Mention of the Boston Blight moves us neatly on to those buffoons
who claim to lead Boston Borough Council.

If further examples were still needed to demonstrate just
how hopeless they are, then two have emerged in the last few days.

The first is the issue of car parking – and despite
constantly being reminded that charges in Boston are too expensive, councillors
continue to view it as the goose that lays the golden egg.

Short of a few bob?

Then stick another ten pence on the price of parking – the
projections predict a vast boost for the coffers if you do.

But it all ends in tears when motorists vote with their
wheels – and steer towards places where parking
is cheaper – or often free.

Then there are long faces all around the cabinet table
accompanied by Tarzan style breast beating and laments about lost income.

The latest figures show that 4.35% fewer car parking tickets
were sold in the first quarter of this council year than in the corresponding
period last year.

And we’re talking big numbers according to the figures –
something like 26,000 fewer tickets this year compared to last year and 50,000
fewer than in 2011/12.

As so often happenes our leaders went for the pie in the sky
based on what turned out to be a series of wrong assumptions.

The estimate for car parking income in the 2013/14 budget was
just over £1 million – which was retained
for the 2014/15 budget as, “at the time,
it wasn’t clear what the net effect of the price increase on 1st October 2013, the effect of disabled parking
charges, and the introduction of civil parking enforcement (CPE) would be.

“It was projected that CPE would encourage more people into
the council’s car parks, and that the new charges would also add or maintain
income, which has proved not to be the case.”

And – in don’t blame us, guv mode – the
council also notes “a downturn in car park income across the town’s private
sector managed car parks has also been noted.”

Now the whole sorry affair is on the agenda for October with
a report on “car parking/review of CPE/options taking car parks forward.”

Expect nothing exciting – the cabinet codgers are too set in
their ways to consider anything radical that might get more people to park in
Boston.

The key mistake is to factor the
expected income into the budget – which then creates problems if the projected
profits fail to materialise.

A better idea would be to wait and see how much money came
in from parking charges, and then to allocate it.

It’s known as living within your means.

We hope that when the council reviews civil parking
enforcement it remembers the falsity from Lincolnshire County Council, which emphatically
denied that ticketing was a fundraising exercise.

The figure it quoted when the plan was mooted was that it
would cost about £1.1 million a year to operate, and that the 20 parking
wardens employed were expected to rake in £940,000 in parking fines.

However, recent figures showed that in 2013 revenue from
parking tickets in Lincolnshire was the second highest outside of London – with
Lincolnshire
County Council pocketing
£2,196,590 in fines from 35,275 parking tickets

As a large chunk of this is “earned” in Boston – despite the
fact that there has been no noticeable impact on the town’s parking problems – it
seems only fair to hand some of it back to be spent on a useful purpose.

The whole Boston parking charge fiasco reminds us of the ancient trick used by hunters to trap
monkeys.

Food is put into a bottle that is firmly tethered to a tree
or a post.

The neck of the bottle is just large enough for the monkey
to reach in and grab a handful of the goodies – but once its fist is full of
food it is too big to pull back out of the bottle.

The monkey (Boston’s so-called leaders) is both too
stupid and too greedy to let go of the food (the income from car
parking) and make a run for it – and thus becomes easy prey.

Sound familiar?

***

The other example of the Boston Blight concerns
the Boston Enterprise Centre – another multi-million pound white elephant at
which Boston Borough Council threw millions of pounds. Think PRSA.

We denounced the idea when it opened five years or so ago,
and sadly, time has proved us right.

The lease expires in November, and the place is making barely
any money for the council

The idea was to develop modern office accommodation
within Boston and strengthen business support services to meet the needs of
business start-ups and small business growth – and Boston Borough Council
secured funding from various sources totalling £3,670,000 to develop it.

However – as always with Boston Borough Council – the road
to hell was paved with good intentions, and nothing came of the idea.

Take up of space was poor, and despite all the exciting
plans, in desperation it was agreed to sub-lease part of the centre to the NHS/Primary
Care Trust for five years.

This meant extending the head-lease for another two years
period to coincide with the end date of the NHS/PCT sub-leases.

All very well, except that no formal sub-leases were ever completed
and the actual sub-tenants have “evolved” over time because of NHS restructuring.

In fact, for the past four years, NHS occupancy at 55% has
been 10%
more than for the intended occupants that that the place was built for.

Now, it could be that the NHS needs will start pulling out
from as early as November with a potential loss in income of £19,000 a year and
uncertainty surrounding the balance of the NHS income of £52,000 per annum.

A report warns that if the NHS vacates part or all of its
space in the short term this could see the centre running at a loss.

And it’s on the brink of that already … with a profit last
year of only £30,000 on a turnover of £226,000 – a fall from £70,411 the year
before.

Now the council has been forced to scrabble around trying to
snatch the least ignominious defeat from the jaws of what was once intended as
economic victory.

Politically, it seems fair to point out that this particular
calamity was a product of the Boston Bypass Independent administration, but it seems
that the Tory heirs to this on-going debacle have done little if anything to
address it before the crunch has come.

***

The Boston Blight has
also been noticed by reader Robin, who wrote after our explanation in last week’s
blog of how the council worked to say: “I must admit that I also have long
been worried by the way most councils are being run these days, in particular
our own Boston Borough Council.

“The small cabinet group of actual governing councillors
seem to have total and complete control over everything – all other councillors
are in fact totally surplus to requirement, as they seem to have no useful or
meaningful function to perform as far as I can see, other than to make up the
numbers.

“This is not how a real democracy is supposed to be. No wonder
the voters have to all intents boycotted local elections with fewer and fewer
turning out year by year.

“I always thought that councillors of all persuasions should
have meaningful input and discussion on all subjects and actually represent and
express the views of their constituents, not just turn up at meetings to make
up the numbers.

“Obviously some like Councillor Carol Taylor do put in
enormous efforts trying to represent their constituents to the best of their
ability, but under this undemocratic system they are not able to have a fair
crack of the whip for their area’s views.

“As it appears that a mere handful are taking and making all
the decisions seemingly regardless of the others’ views, then it seems to me
that if this continues we only need a mere handful of councillors, of course
this means that democracy is a dead duck – but
it more or less is already in this town.”

***

We followed up on last week’s Sunday Times report on senior council officer pay, with a quick word
with the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The story concerned Peter Lewis, Britain's highest-paid
council official, who channels his income through his private company
in a scheme that reduces tax bills.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles told the newspaper: “We've
changed the law to reduce secrecy on town hall pay deals and given elected
councillors the power to veto excessive senior pay.

“Councillors now need to use these powers — and they should
be held to account if they turn a blind eye," he said.

So we asked what his view might be on the similar
arrangement under which Boston’s Chief Executive is paid.

The department was slow in answering – it operates an
interesting system under which once the press office e-mail post-box is full,
queries are returned as undeliverable and must be sent over and over again
until there is room in the mailbox.

Bizarre!

However, we found a way around that, and received the
following “go boil your head” response.

“Your blog includes the Secretary of State’s comment that
was given to the Sunday Times. The
same rules would apply to Boston Borough Council. It would be for the council
to explain why they are paying him in this way.”

So, Pickles trumpets the rules that he has made; councils do
nothing to observe them and the minister is the one who turns the blind eye.

If anyone other than Eric Pickles was involved, we would use
the descriptor “gutless!”

***

Last week we questioned the value of Boston Borough
Council’s daily propaganda sheet – given that it can take a two week break
without anyone at Worst Street apparently being bothered.

And it seems that readers who wonder why are deemed unworthy
of a response.

One told us: “I never got courtesy of a reply when I asked the
council where it had gone.”

So much for our caring council.

***

It was with a sigh of relief that we noted the
conclusion of the “public” appeal to unveil a £4,200 lump of stone on the 96th
anniversary of the ending of the First World War on November 11th.

Whilst it would be impossible to say without a look at the
list of contributors, it seems likely that the majority of the money came from
ratepayers in one form or another, via parish councils and the great and the
good who hold office

Certainly, the public were reluctant participants in this
sorry affair which, let us not forget, needed to be underwritten from council
tax by the incompetent B-TACky committee in Worst Street when it looked as
though the appeal might fall flat on its face.

This placed any possible charge unfairly on citizens who
paid an extra precept for the honour to be represented by B-TACky rather than the
council’s main budget making up any difference.

Hopefully, Worst Street will have taken away a few
lessons on the right way to organise and
promote such an appeal – largely because they got most of it wrong.

***

Finally, after last week’s piece on the scheme to encourage
young people to take an interest in their local council, we received an
interesting e-mail from an insider, who told us that the funding for a Youth Council that we mentioned came
from Conservative Councillor Gurdip Samra
– “whose two sons started it off!”

“The first donation from him of £1,000 was declared at a
meeting where there was a discussion about housing and difficulties faced by those who can't afford them,” we were told.

The e-mail continued: “When this came up on the agenda,
Samra piped up with his £1,000 donation and pompously said ‘may as well, it
would only go to the taxman anyway’ … this in a meeting where people were
discussing how times were so hard.”

As we said earlier, so much for our caring council.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your
e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

1 comment:

Boston Eyes very accurate account of Neil Hamilton's somewhat less than illustrious political career, gives me much room for concern, the thought that he will more than likely be chosen as the UKIP candidate fills me with bewilderment, UKIP having already sacked a good Local Candidate for what looked like some sort of internal spat,, a candidate that like it or loathe it, actually had a fairly reasonable chance of winning this constituency for them, what ever are they now trying to do, commit political suicide in this constituency?. Myself now being completely turned off politics by the convoluted and disastrous antics of all the other parties, plus the untold havoc they have caused to the lives of countless numbers of ordinary hard working families. As such I had seriously thought of voting for UKIP purely as a protest vote, no chance of that if Mr and Mrs H get nominated as candidate.

About the author

is written and edited by retired Lincolnshire born writer and broadcaster Malcolm Swire, who was brought up in London, where he began his career in journalism.
In the 1960s he joined the Boston Standard before returning to London to write for the UK’s national news agency, the Press Association – then based in Fleet Street.
He returned to Lincolnshire –where his family history goes back more than a century – in various public relations roles, before becoming a founder member of BBC Radio Lincolnshire,where he created the station's Go for Gold appeal,which raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for local charities.
Over the years, he read the news, presented programmes and retired from the BBC as the station's Programme Organiser and Deputy Managing Editor.
He started the Boston Eye blog in February 2007 and has vowed to continue until Boston Borough Council's leadership is all that it should be!
He has dug in for a long wait!